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Episode 27 - Bryony Cooper, Managing Partner at Arkley Brink VC.
34 Plays11 months ago
In this week's episode, Sade and Bryony discussed why the VC world needs more women, especially at the leadership level.
She also shares her thoughts on the positive impact this would have on the journey of female founders, given the current gender funding gap.
We hope you enjoy this one!
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Transcript
Introduction to Women Talk Tech with Bryony Cooper
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Women Talk Tech. Today, I'm joined by Bryony Cooper, managing partner at Artfully Bring VC. Bryony and I discussed why the VC world needs more women, especially at leadership level. She also shares her thoughts on the positive impact this would have on the journey of female founders given the current gender funding gap. I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Bryony's Experience in Tech and VC
00:00:37
Speaker
So, Bryony, tell me a little bit more about yourself. My name's Bryony Cooper. I am, let's say, a serial entrepreneur. I've been working in the tech startup ecosystem for about 15 years now. And for the last five years, I've been managing partner at Arkley Brink VC. And we do early stage tech investments based out of Warsaw in Poland. But I myself am living in Berlin, in Germany, where we have a super vibrant startup ecosystem.
00:01:02
Speaker
Oh, I love that. I guess that's the joys of the pandemic, right? You can work from wherever, anywhere you want. You can just get the job done. Yeah, I mean, I've always been pretty international because you can probably hear from my accent. I'm from the UK originally, which is where I started my first company. But I've been living in Berlin on and off for 11 years now and then did a brief stint in Bachain in the Gulf in the Middle East for a while to run an accelerator program there and then got involved with this Polish team. So, yeah, I get around, let's say.
00:01:32
Speaker
that saying on like any other term is not the right one to use, but in this example where you're saying it, I get it. Exactly. It's all about context. Exactly. And you know, of course, I'm sure we'll dive a lot deeper into topic in the podcast, but what does seeing eye mean to you and why is it important?
Unconscious Bias and Role Models for Women
00:01:50
Speaker
So all of my career I've worked in very male-dominated industries and being a woman I've always found myself in the staggering minority and the teams I've worked in, the executive boards I've worked in and the conferences that I've been to and the panels I've spoken on and you know it definitely does have an impact and I think women and any other minority groups, I mean women are not a minority but you know women and minority groups that say
00:02:16
Speaker
face unique challenges. There is unfortunately a lot of unconscious bias so even a lot of the kind of allies and best meaning men in the industry do still have this unconscious bias that you can see in the statistics of you know how many women are raising investment from bench capital funds but also just in my day-to-day lived experience as a woman working in tech
00:02:39
Speaker
I think in so many cases men are just automatically assumed to be competent whereas women have to go that extra mile to prove themselves competent and also we have to measure our behaviors of how we come across you know to be like women need to be assertive but not too assertive otherwise it's threatening and it's just you know it's a whole different ball game for us so I think it's so important.
00:03:01
Speaker
role models that we can look up to, that we can emulate, that we can feel inspired by so we don't give up hope. And yeah, to kind of actually draw us into those industries that are still currently very male-dominated to say, hang on a minute, well, we can do that too.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, women can do it too. And maybe some of us can do it better. Not just saying it, but I do agree. I think men tend to, we assume men can do it. And we, like you said, women have to prove so much more that they can actually do the job, whether in tech or not, but I think definitely in tech for sure.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's so important as well when like, you look at the global demographic that almost half the world are women. And so when people are building products and services, it's very likely that around half of their customers are going to be women. So it just doesn't make sense to have an all male team or an all male board making the decisions about you know,
00:03:52
Speaker
what the product's going to become. And especially when you look at technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, again, it doesn't make sense if you only have one specific demographic of like men from a certain region, from a certain age group that are actually programming the data that the AI is going to learn from because it won't be representative. So that's another thing that we have to consider why it's so important to have diversity and inclusion right up to the top levels of who are the decision makers of the technology that we're developing.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, let's go on if AI is really taken over and if that data that we are almost now using and relying on and living by is not somewhat balanced, then who knows what the world will look like if we continue going that way. Yeah. I mean, I just saw in the news today actually that, you know, there's been a lot of talk around open AI with the CEO leaving and then coming back and then he's actually maybe not coming back.
00:04:40
Speaker
But I just read that now the entire board of the company is men. And this is a very important company that's making headlines all the time, that's developing technologies that will be used by a lot of companies. So the question is, even though maybe that's just one small example, but why? Why are we not having women at a decision making level there when their technology is going to impact women as well? It's going to be used by women as well.
00:05:02
Speaker
Totally, totally. I mean, we'll get into so much more in the podcast.
Bryony's Journey from Arts to Venture Capital
00:05:07
Speaker
Let's dive deep into your background. How did you break into the VC world? It's been a bit of a roller coaster ride, really.
00:05:18
Speaker
background that's very different actually. I studied creative writing at university and then I was a professional singer for seven years when I was younger so I had no idea that I was going to you know get into the business world or the tech world at all but when I first kind of started a career outside of singing I was working with SMEs so I worked for a company that was doing networking events for smaller media enterprises and freelancers and entrepreneurs so that was my kind of first little foray into that industry when I was in my early 20s
00:05:46
Speaker
But I guess I've just always had a very entrepreneurial spirit and I just said yes to opportunities that came along. And before I knew it, I was running my own company. And then it just all kind of snowballed very quickly. I had a co-founder in my first company that was very much the one coming up with the ideas and the driven one. But I was the one that was really good with people and with management because I've got kind of more natural communication and interpersonal skills, which matched very well with his technology skills, because I think that's a skill set that
00:06:16
Speaker
you know the whole EQ is something that often very deep tech people are sometimes not so strong in. So I found that my personality is a really good fit to work with tech and product people and makes a really round team and so the first tech startup that we did really took off and we ended up raising a couple of million euros because you know the first time I went on a stage to pitch alongside nine very shy computer programmers. That's so true.
00:06:41
Speaker
I was a former professional singer that was just like, hi. So I was very good at selling the vision and making myself understood and communicating clearly. And those are really transferable skills that I found useful throughout my entire career. So once I realized how exciting the startup ecosystem is and how much of it is about people, about networking, about this whole face-to-face building relationships and investor relations, it's something that I just took to like a fish in water.
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah, so I just sort of switched track completely once I felt like I'd sung enough songs and here I am. Oh, I love that. And do you know, it's incredible what you said because I think you tend to, well, I think we tend to dismiss how much being a founder is somewhat sales. It is, you know, you're selling your product, you're selling, not yourself, but you are selling somewhat you as a founder. And I think, you know, when we do look at the typical
00:07:35
Speaker
um you know tech co-founder or tech person then not all of them right but they tend just to they tend to be quite into that and i think sometimes you know going on stage and having to pitch your company can be quite daunting i mean i don't know if i'd be able to do it right so having that kind of character where you can do that like yourself being a professional singer it probably really worked out super well
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean there's two things. One of them is I say to people that life's a pitch. Once you work in a startup, it's not only pitching to investors, you are constantly pitching. Yeah, you're pitching your vision because to your own team members, your own employees, you can't afford to pay them the highest salaries when you're a startup, right? So you need them to buy into your vision and really believe in it so that they, you know, so that they're loyal to your company.
00:08:17
Speaker
and dedicated and also you know you're constantly trying to sell to potential customers to clients and like to distributors and partners and media that you want to get PR coverage from you're constantly trying to convince people to believe in what you're building so if you don't really believe it and if you cannot convey that then it's not going to work so you need that person in a startup team preferably the CEO or someone at C level that isn't only about the technology but like you said knows how to sell
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, wow. And you know, breaking into the VC world yourself, what experience did you, do you think you
Diversity in VC and Entrepreneurial Backgrounds
00:08:50
Speaker
need? And yeah, how did you kind of find that transition then from, you know, somewhat being a founder yourself to then, you know, helping other founders gain investment? How did you do that?
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah so my my route is very non-traditional compared to the majority of VCs because you know I dropped out of university after two years to become a serial entrepreneur so entrepreneurship is one way that you can do it and my journey although it was unconventional it was quite organic because I ran my first small business and then I ran my first tech startup and then I ran a second tech startup and then I joined a venture builder program as the CEO then I ran an accelerator program for a global accelerator and then
00:09:28
Speaker
eventually I moved to venture capital. I did sort of like climb my way up the ladder of learning the entire 360
00:09:35
Speaker
like view of how to run a startup, how to raise money for a startup so that I could then take my own experiences and use those to support other startups. So that's one way to do it, but of course the more traditional way is if you've got a degree in either like finance or business administration and especially if you've done some internship or you've had a junior position at one of the top consulting firms like McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group,
00:09:59
Speaker
that very often then means you can then become an investment analyst and then work your way up the ladder within a venture capital fund. Wow wow okay cool so there's not a typical route well there is a typical route but again you know you can somehow somehow work your way into it as you said. And I think it's so important to have diversification there as well because you know if if every investor is a carbon cutout of the same traditional route that when you know they have a degree in finance and business administration and then they were at beginning and then
00:10:28
Speaker
you know again it's not going to be representative of all of the founders that you're working with so to have someone who's actually been in their shoes and has actually built companies from the ground up and has experienced the same struggles the same challenges that i think is so valuable to then be able to support your portfolio better um that i think you know every vc should have a combination of both like yeah have the number crunches definitely but also have the people with the lived experience that know
00:10:54
Speaker
what they're talking about. Totally, totally. I mean, I've always been brought, I mean, I was brought up on the assumption that yes, you know, having that educational background is really important, but having the life experiences that can kind of get you through them or the other challenges that many people have gone through is equally as important. So yeah, I definitely, definitely see where you're coming from there. Yeah, definitely.
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah.
Challenges for Women in VC
00:11:12
Speaker
And, you know, what's your experience been, you know, working in the VC world as a woman? Of course, I'm sure, like you said, you've kind of got the background as a tech startup founder. So you're already ahead of the game if you think about that. But how have you still found the kind of diversity within the VC world yourself?
00:11:29
Speaker
Women are definitely underrepresented, especially at partner and managing partner level. So I am seeing more and more women enter the scene at kind of more junior positions. But yeah, the number of women at decision making level is still quite small across the globe. I think even more so in Europe than in the US, for example.
00:11:52
Speaker
But yeah, my team is 50-50, but we're only four core team members. We're quite small, so it's not actually that difficult to have two and two. But for me, that's something really important when I'm looking at companies that I want to work with. The teams that we invest in, it's difficult to, you know, I would love to be able to invest in half women led teams, but working in Poland,
00:12:14
Speaker
the pool is quite small to choose from right so on the one hand it can't only be about quotas right you also have to fulfill certain KPIs and when like 90% of the applications are coming from all male teams it's really tricky it's really tricky so you know i've got my values and i try to be an advocate for women
00:12:32
Speaker
both in startups and in VC but you can only get so far with the current pool of what's out there which is why we need to start earlier in motivating and incentivising people who are considering becoming entrepreneurs or who are considering entering the VC market
00:12:49
Speaker
to actually take that leap of faith and like provide them with resources and network contacts. So that's why I try to invest a lot of my energy into, I do pro bono mentoring for women founders and entrepreneurs. I attend a lot of events that are for women in tech where we need men there as the allies as well to spend the word because it's not good if we're just in a bubble, right? Yeah. But yeah, that's like, I'm doing podcasts like this and I'm speaking on panels at tech conferences for women in tech.
00:13:16
Speaker
So I do what I can. Oh, I was in this book called Dear Female Founder, which is a series of letters to the next generation of women entrepreneurs. Amazing. Yeah. So hopefully some resources like that can encourage more women to get on board.
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And you know, it's interesting what you said there, because I think you're right, you know, we want to invest more in female led companies, but the pool is so small. And if 90% of them that are applying are men, you know, even the 90% are still applying, they may not also be relevant to what you want to invest in, right? So then the tension of women led companies that do also apply, again, very, very small pool. What's the biggest challenge in your role now? And would you say, considering the stats we have, what's the biggest challenge in your role, would you say?
00:14:02
Speaker
Do you mean overall or related to women applying? I mean, overall, just in general, I mean, the issue of women applying is not just for you, right? But I think in general, what's the biggest challenge in your role now?
00:14:16
Speaker
For us, it's really difficult that a lot of people applying to the fund are not really doing the most basic level of research and we have only so many hours in the day. So I try to be really clear in the communications online around our fund of what our investment criteria are because we work with public money from PFR Ventures behind us, which is an EU fund. So our investment criteria are very specific. Like if we say we can only invest in a Polish entity, that's how it is. If we say we can only invest in a pre-revenue company, that's how it
Current Challenges in Venture Capital
00:14:45
Speaker
is.
00:14:47
Speaker
So I'd say like probably about 90% of the applications that I receive are not a fit for our fund because they haven't done the most basic level of research and it means that a lot of time gets wasted on both sides and people are chasing you up for an answer and you're like look mate, if you would read the opening title on my website you would know that this is not going to go work. So I guess like just from an operational side that's one of the biggest challenges or frustrations.
00:15:16
Speaker
But of course, on a higher level, venture capital has seen some massive challenges over the last couple of years. First we had the pandemic and then came the war with Ukraine. And now there's another new war popping up and it's affecting the whole global economy and the climate economically. And valuations have taken a massive nosedive, which started off just in later stage companies, but now has filtered all the way down to like pre-seed investments.
00:15:44
Speaker
So, you know, there's just a lot of uncertainty and like nervousness from investors about such an unstable climate. I think it's going to start recovering now, but it's just like the world has been through so much in the last few years that everyone's like, I'm not sure if venture capital is what I should be focusing on right now. So like on a higher level, that's probably the biggest challenge.
00:16:05
Speaker
And I guess equally, right, for founders also, looking at the VC world, if as a founder you some, well, you can't bootstrap your business and you do then rely on VC funding, looking at how the VC world is now, it can be quite challenging for founders as well. Like, would you want to found a company in that time? You know, it's crazy.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think it is really, it's difficult for pre-revenue companies that are trying to justify a decent valuation for themselves. It's getting harder and harder because when you see valuations of other established companies taking a nosedive, you know, and they're trying to justify a valuation that they think is fair, but they don't have any traction yet to back it up.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah. It's tough. It's really tough for them. So of course, when we're evaluating a company to see how much should we actually pay for shares in that company, we don't only look at traction because it's pre-revenue that we're investing in, but we look at what's the experience of the founders. Do they have any track record, any exits before?
00:17:07
Speaker
market opportunity. So we do try to kind of look at the future potential of the growth of the market as well. So there's a lot of different factors that we're considering. We're not only looking at the bottom line in terms of, you know, potential revenues. But yeah, it's tough out there for specific industries more than others. Like if you look at industries like AI and cybersecurity and communications, these are actually skyrocketing because automation has like really accelerated since the pandemic.
00:17:35
Speaker
Whereas if you were doing anything in like kind of fast moving consumer goods or like food and beverage and leisure industry, like these during the pandemic took such a hit that a lot of companies had to go out of business because people were just not in that market anymore.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, and I think you're right. I think those things are still not yet recovered. I think that AI space, cybersecurity, I actually went to the IoT Expo yesterday in London and it was incredible to see so many cool startups and also so many large companies there as well. But yeah, I think certain domains and entities are doing well, others are not so. And I think I would love, I mean, that's really optimistic. We would love to see it at a time where everyone's doing well and it is quite fairytale like, but I get it, it's not real life.
00:18:17
Speaker
Yeah, I was at Hardware Pioneers in London, I think it was the year before last. And like, all the companies were telling me that there's like a shortage of micro trips because so many like China factories had to shut down during the pandemic that they're just like, we can't build our electronics because no one's delivering them. So it really impacted so many industries. Wow, wow, wow.
Importance of Women in Leadership Roles
00:18:36
Speaker
And the VC world, of course, I know that like tech is very male, very male dominated. Why do you think, well, what's your opinion on having more women in the VC world? And why is it important?
00:18:51
Speaker
We shouldn't even have to argue it because you can just look at any reports or any statistics and they will show you for any type of business in any industry, the bottom line is better when you have women at decision making level. It's just like the proofs in the pudding. But like going down to a kind of more granular level, there's just different skills that women can bring to a team.
00:19:14
Speaker
From my personal experience, I've been many times the only woman in a boardroom full of men where tensions have been running very high. There's a lot of testosterone in the room and aggression and tempers are raised. And like, if I hadn't been there to calm things down and like have the diplomatic approach, I don't know if like a punch would have been thrown to me on it. So like, you know, just bringing a bit of balance into the team is the one thing I think
00:19:40
Speaker
you know of course you can never generalize and everybody's different but quite often women do develop a kind of a higher sense of emotional intelligence and like one-to-one communication skills and you know the ability to diffuse tense situations so I think these kind of skills are so important for leadership roles and also to have someone in a leadership role that your team feels like comfortable that they can come and talk to you without feeling too intimidated you know I think it is it's really important to have somebody like that
00:20:10
Speaker
And especially when you've got male and female employees or non-binary, then they need to have someone they feel comfortable coming to talk to that they can relate to as well. So, you know, if you've only got men at executive level and then you've got, you know, women or non-binary employees or transgender employees and they're like, I don't really feel comfortable going to talk to those, like, you know,
00:20:35
Speaker
white dudes that are over the age of 50. They're not gonna get what I'm talking about. So I think you have to have more diverse representation at the level that's gonna be leading your company.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, totally. And I think it trickles down to like the very minor details of like, you know, you know, you know, women health issues are just like being able to feel comfortable speaking to your manager about things versus wider things like maternity leave. Like it's such a broad spectrum. I think you're right. I think we're missing it at all ends and we're just not doing it right. I think especially in the VC world and in tech, but I think we're, I think there's so many aspects which we're just missing by just not having more women in leadership roles.
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've had some really personal and interesting discussions over the last couple of years with team members about like about mental health and about physical health. And I think we could only have these conversations because we felt like it was a safe space. And I've worked in other companies before that definitely did not feel like a space where I would have felt comfortable bringing up any of those issues because I just thought either
00:21:31
Speaker
I'm going to be judged or they're going to think less of me if I disclose that kind of information and it's just really sad because what I've experienced today in the company that I've fostered this environment in has just been complete understanding and acceptance and stepping in to support each other when we need it.
00:21:49
Speaker
And I know that that's difficult to translate to larger companies. It's much easier when you have a very small team. But then establishing a company culture from the beginning is so important. And I think that's what a lot of companies that grow quickly. So looking more maybe at startups than VCs now, because they can grow exponentially and very, very fast from three founders to suddenly have 50 people to suddenly have 200 people.
Establishing Company Culture and Diversity Early
00:22:13
Speaker
If you don't think about the type of company culture and the type of values and the type of working environment that you want to create and foster right from the beginning, it can really spin out of control and you're going to lose a handle on that. Something that founders often don't think about until too late and then they try and implement it later and it's already too far gone.
00:22:34
Speaker
Honestly, I've spoken with so many founders that have just said, yeah, you know, we really want to hire more women now. And I'm like, wait, hold on a sec. That's great. And I'm loving the honesty, but how many, how many, how big are you now? All 30 people big. I'm like, wait, hold on a sec. So you're now 30 people big and you're now only thinking about diversity. And it's like the habits that you've now created will be much harder to now change because you've now got a whole team of the same person, you know?
00:22:59
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah. When I've done one-to-one mentoring with women founders and entrepreneurs, I've talked to a couple of them that have been in a recruitment process with a company where they said, okay, so there's this tech company that's got three or four German male co-founders that are all in their 30s that have been your friends since university. And they're offering me this job, but I'm not sure I feel totally comfortable
00:23:26
Speaker
already existing, that clearly they only want to hire me to fill a quota or for, you know, public appearances. And do I want to be that quota, right? Do they actually want to hire me based on my merits? Or do they just realize that it's good for optics? And I think that's another really big problem that we're facing. It's the same for tech conferences, you know, I received so many invitations, either to speak at conferences or just to attend
00:23:51
Speaker
because they're trying like I appreciate on the one hand they're trying they're trying to make a big push to have more women representation but at the same time I'm like do you really want me there for my expertise which you should because I have a lot or do you want me there so your statistics look better
00:24:07
Speaker
Yeah. Literally, I've been to so many tech conferences whereby there's like, I actually went to a FinTech one, which is even more interesting because you then have finance and tech. And there was one woman on the panel and it was like, I could not help but think. And also she even said like, I'm happy I'm here, but I'm the only woman here. And I would love to be sitting here with much more. And I think it's even so sad that we sit here and think, am I only being invited because I'm a woman and you're trying to fill an optic and all of that.
00:24:32
Speaker
So yeah, it's interesting. And you know, especially in the tech startup scene, of course, you've got a lot of experience in the space.
Increasing Female Participation in Tech Startups
00:24:40
Speaker
What do you think would be the biggest impact if we had more women join from early on?
00:24:48
Speaker
I think first of all, there would be more investments in women led teams because that unconscious bias that I talked about earlier would be dramatically reduced. So even though we have a lot of well-intentioned men running VCs that are talking the talk, they're not walking the walk and you can just see that in the investments that they make. So I think that there would be like a more conscious and conscientious drive towards
00:25:11
Speaker
doing a deeper evaluation of women led teams or mixed teams. So I think that that would definitely be reflected. But I also think that it would be the catalyst just to generate and stimulate more interest from women in these industries. Because when we're starting out and thinking, what kind of career do I wanna do? When you see more women representing the type of job that you can totally imagine yourself doing and you're like, ah, that's exactly what I wanna do when I grow up. Then it's gonna encourage more women from a younger age to follow that route.
00:25:42
Speaker
Yeah, I said all the time, especially in leadership, I think, well, I actually had a female engineer and I hate even saying female engineer, I just wanna say an engineer and we just will not even think that it's gonna be a man, but I had a female engineer and she got to a final, she was really excited for this company and she said, but can you just,
00:25:57
Speaker
Help me in or help me find out there's some more women in the team and it was very tricky right because there wasn't that many and even then it's like that There's still that barrier from the very beginning And if you just have more women in from the very from the from the offset then more women would be entitled or want to join the company, you know Yeah, yeah
00:26:17
Speaker
And I guess, you know, same for the kind of gender funding gap, like you said, I guess how, if we had more women in tech, more women in the space, what would be, what would, do you think the change would be if you had more women in the, you know, being tech founders? How do you think this would kind of change the entire industry? Pretty optimistic question, I know.
00:26:38
Speaker
I think first of all, we would see a big reduction in the prevailing bro culture that kind of came over from the original San Francisco ecosystem that's filtered down into Europe. Because just as we've seen outside of the tech scene, some years back we had the whole Me Too movement and in a lot of
00:26:57
Speaker
Workplaces suddenly like men of a certain generation were like, oh wait, we can't slap the secretary's butt anymore. It was just like a complete shift in the mentality of how we need to show our respect and treat women at the workplace. And I think we'd see the same thing in the startup world and the VC world. There would just be a difference in mentality that would make it a more welcoming
00:27:19
Speaker
environment for women to step into. I currently know women that actively avoid going to certain events because they know they're going to be one of the only women there and they just cannot be bothered. And even like I've experienced plenty of sexism and sexual harassment throughout my career, where you know, I've had like creepy older guys from my professional industry that have like looked me up on
00:27:40
Speaker
a dating app or have tried to message me on LinkedIn to ask me out. And it's just so inappropriate and we shouldn't have to deal with that. So I know women that actively avoid, you know, super male dominated events that could be good for their career, but they just can't have to feel that sort of attention or that sort of like, you know, sexism or the just the assumptions that are made about them. Yeah, that would change too.
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think if we just had more women in the space, in the issues that are very male dominated, like you said, hopefully more women would want to get involved and we'd get rid of the kind of bro culture, which unfortunately is everywhere. And like I said, in tech conferences, like you said, in the workplace, I think there's so many things that we can make just by having more women led companies, more women founders. So yeah, that's
00:28:31
Speaker
That would be the aim, right? Yeah. And I mean, it's kind of sad because I consider myself a pretty staunch feminist.
Addressing Sexism and Harassment in the Workplace
00:28:40
Speaker
And, you know, I speak about the topic very often and very openly. And I know that certainly there's men who I've worked with throughout my career who have
00:28:47
Speaker
felt like they had to walk on eggshells around me, but I'm like, well, if something you're going to say is be offensive, maybe you shouldn't say it in the first place. But even I, to my shame, have found myself, you know, if you're talking to someone who is important enough, as in, for example, could be a massive investor or a huge client opportunity for your business,
00:29:05
Speaker
if they you know go for drinks with you to celebrate a deal and get a bit inappropriate you still find like well do I just need to hold my tongue because I don't want to lose this opportunity and it's horrible that anyone should ever have to be in that position to actually question their own judgment and their own integrity but that is still the world that we live in unfortunately and it's getting better over time and of course as I become older and more experienced like less people I won't even try but um
00:29:33
Speaker
You know, throughout, because I started pretty young, you know, I was a CEO by the time I was in my mid 20s. So of course, there was a lot of much older guys that are from a different generation and just, you know, grew up in a different world where different standards were socially accepted. Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, we're still on the tail end of that. So
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's the one thing I love about I mean, that's the one thing I love about the generation we are living in now is it's, it's, you can speak out about things and not feel like you're going to be judged completely. And I think that's the change I think, especially we've seen in the startup world in the, I think we're much open to just saying how it is, no matter how not unpolitically correct it is, but just how bad it may sound.
00:30:15
Speaker
We're still happy to kind of say, I mean, I see so many amazing posts on LinkedIn about the tech startup scene, about female founders. And it's like 20 years ago, you may have not wanted to say it, let alone posts on LinkedIn. And I think now it's become a lot more acceptable to say those things that may not have been acceptable 20 years ago, like you said.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I love to see the shift. I mean, of course, it's still too slow and too late, but at least it's happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess on the resources side, I think one thing I found, and I think many other women find it in
00:30:48
Speaker
industries that are very male-dominated is there's a bit of a lack of resources or they are there but it feels that we have to do a lot to get them. I guess you have been in this space for a while now, you've been in the tech startup scene, I'm sure you know a lot of people. Could you maybe share some resources to maybe help more and get connected, access to the tech startup world, anything? What sort of resources would you share?
Resources Supporting Women in Tech
00:31:11
Speaker
Absolutely. So a lot of my network is from Berlin, where I'm based, of course. So here we have Found a Land that's a community and an accelerator for women of color. So any kind of ethnic minority has even harder time raising capital, because there's just more, again, like unconscious or even conscious bias. So Found a Land is great. That's run by Stephanie von Baer. She's awesome. There is Lenox Capital, which is run by a young woman called
00:31:40
Speaker
Paulina Jensch. I did a joint keynote with her at the Perspective Women in Tech Summit earlier this year, and she invests exclusively in women-led companies or companies that have at least 50% representation at the founder or executive level doing impact tech. So if you've got an impact startup, that's your go-to, I would say, for looking for venture capital. Just this week, I've seen two new programs launch. One of them is called Venturing Women Lab.
00:32:09
Speaker
Um, so this will be like, um, a paid program where you're matched with mentors. And, uh, it's like, I think it's also an accelerator. Um, there's also about to launch one called founder buddies by Amanda. And she is doing the first cohort for free and starting in January. And I think the deadline's on the 15th of December. So I don't know if this podcast will be published before or after that date, but, um, anyone that can apply before the 15th of December has the chance to have.
00:32:38
Speaker
the first cohort for free. Also Daria the woman that runs Venturing Women Lab offers some free one-to-one mentoring sessions for women founders so that's also great. Yeah so there's a couple of others but there are there are things out there.
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's incredible. And you know, I do love when I see just more resources being thrown out there, more help, more mentoring. I think that's the key. I think we've lapped that for a long time. And I think it is nice, like you said, to kind of see the shift. We are much more willing to help other women and much willing to share our challenges, successes, issues. And that's what I think will change the game for sure.
00:33:15
Speaker
Definitely, yeah. I went to a really awesome event last week from Founderland that was together with Amazon Web Services that was sponsoring it. There was four incredible women pitching, a lot about health tech, for example, and big data companies. Then there was a panel with four established entrepreneurs and investors that are all women that are completely kicking ass. It was really inspirational to see that.
00:33:37
Speaker
again there were some men there but these are the kind of events where we need men definitely to be in the room to say like look at what we can do and not just have other women there to pat you on the back because again then where you know where's the action and where's the follow-up so something that I've noticed is a big trend is there is quite a lot of kind of community out there to get you started but then once you actually launch your company and you need capital that's where we're stalling so we need you know that follow-up actually
00:34:05
Speaker
Um, there's one other resource I could mention for, um, if anyone's running a company or a VC and is wondering what they can do actually to get better at diversity and inclusion. Um, there was a book published this year by Susie Levy called Mind the Inclusion Gap. And this is full of stories. She used to run, um, she used to run, uh, that department at Accenture. So a huge, huge corporate company. Um, and my sister is actually quoted as one of the stories or like one of the use cases in there. So, you know,
00:34:34
Speaker
coming from a perspective you know if you're a person of colour or if you are queer or if you are living with a disability you know if there's any kind of anything that's impacted your diversity and inclusion journey then this is like not only stories from people that have lived that experience but like from a manager's perspective actionable advice on like how can I improve that in my company and so I think that's also a worthwhile read.
00:35:04
Speaker
you